Postcards from the Mothership

I remember the first few months after Tristan was born, but only vaguely. It was a scary and exhilerating, but it was also a very isolating time in my life. I remember how our week revolved around going to the well-baby drop in, where I could actually talk to other mothers of babies the same age and realize that so much of what we were going through was just garden-variety infant mothering and not the crisis that each day seemed to be.

I wish I had seen something like Wee Welcome back then. It’s a new site for Canadian moms, especially moms of babies under one who live near Toronto, Vancouver and Ottawa.

In their own words:

Our goal is to help Canadian moms get the most out of their babies’ first year – to have a baby and a life. To that end we are:

* Shining a light on baby-welcoming locations through our print and online guide.
* Helping moms connect through our moms’ group community.
* Providing no-crap, original articles that don’t pander.
* Leading events that make sure you get out and have a good time.

And that’s just the beginning.

We’re working to create a more baby-welcoming society, where moms breastfeed longer, are more connected to other moms, and are busy, active and happier. Happy moms make for happy babies.

I love their “Go” feature. It lists local places that are “baby welcoming”, and provides a list of ammenities offered by each location. There are also places to form online mom’s groups, and some great articles – including some written by one of my favourite authors. Even if you don’t live in Vancouver, Toronto or Ottawa, it’s worth a few clicks just to page through and see a great idea well executed.

(P.S. In the interest of fair disclosure, I should probably mention that I found this site because one of the co-founders, Jody, sent me a note and told me to feel free to mention Wee Welcome on my blog, if I felt so inclined. After I came down off the high of being considered a big enough fish to have blog mention solicited, I clicked through and realized that I would have promoted this site even if I’d stumbled upon it independently. But it sure was nice to be asked!)

Categories: Mothering

When I was growing up, I was the only Danielle I knew. I was the only Danielle in my grade school, and there was one other one in my high school. Well, she was a Daniela, actually, but that’s about as close as it got. When my folks won a trip to Paris when I was fifteen, my mom brought me back a gold charm with ‘Danielle’ written on it, simply because none of the personalized trinkets in late 1970s / early 1980s southern Ontario ever featured my name.

I remember being enthralled with the covers of Danielle Steel’s books when I was young, because she was a Danielle and she was a writer. Even as a hopelessly romantic preteen, I couldn’t stomach her writing – give me Stephen King any day! – but I could at least see she was making a living with words, and I knew I wanted to do that, too.

I was living here in Ottawa before I actually encountered another Dani. Ottawa, across the river from La Belle Provence, has a much higher concentration of French names, and now there are Danielles everywhere I go. One of my co-worker’s daughters is named Dani, and there’s another one who works in the IT branch of my organization.

Given that rudimentary analysis of the volume of Danis in my universe, it must be that every other Dani on the Internet has visited my blog this month. In the first seven days of November alone, I’ve had 41 hits on the keywords “Dani needs”. Remember that meme?

I’ve met some really cool Dani bloggers, after they linked to me through the meme. There’s Dani from the East coast, also a mom of two preschoolers. She’s got a girl, though (she said covetously). She writes at The Yellow Wallpaper, a very funky-looking blog, and plays regularly in the comment sandbox.

There’s another 30-something Dani from Long Island who writes a knit-blog at Yea, I Knit. (I’m beginning to think all the Danis have cooler blog designs than me. Hmmmm…)

Perhaps most endearing, I have found my inner 14 year old blogging thoughtfully more than 2000 km away. This Dani is a high school freshman in Forth Worth, Texas, and her profile includes the line, “I can do anything I put my mind to.” She’s smart, thoughtful, and she’s a competent writer… but reading her blog is like reading me 20-odd years ago, and it feels so very odd!

Who knew there were so many Danis out there? Welcome! Maybe we could form a Dani Blog Ring or something?

You’re about to lose some respect for me. (If you had any to begin with, that is.) I’m about to confess to something particularly shallow.

Not only do I watch TLC’s What Not to Wear on occasion, but I’d love to have someone do that wardrobe makeover thing to me. Not so much with the humiliation on national TV – lord knows there’s more than enough humiliation right here on the Interweb – but I’d really like someone who knows clothes and quality and makeup walk me through the whole style thing. I don’t have a style. Where do you get one, anyway? Can I buy it on eBay? And one day I’d like to spend some serious money on real clothes, instead of collecting separates pell mell like a magpie building a nest.

I keep making the same mistakes over and over again. For example, I have this addiction to striped turtlenecks. I buy at least one every season, each one worn a few times until I catch sight of myself in some passing reflective surface and realize how unflattering a look it is for me. I’m a curvy sort of girl, and stripes are not always kind to curves. And turtlenecks? Let’s just say the push-up effect works better in a bra than it does as a turtleneck supporting my chin(s). I can rationalize this is the cold light of day, but once I get into the mall and see all those long-sleeved striped turtleneck sweaters in the seasons brightest colours I can’t help myself.

I went to Winners the other day, and promised myself I would try on anything except a striped turtleneck. I tried on 12 black sweaters and tops (did I mention I just this year discovered black on black? Where have you been all my life?) and not one of them was worth buying. Last weekend, I was in the mall with the boys and got sucked into Northern Reflections (of all places – so much for urban chic at the office) by a conspicuous display of – you guessed it – striped turtlenecks. I bought two. I am incorrigible.

And things are further complicated by the fact that I’ve recently realized that as a 36 year old mother of two, I’m a woman of a certain age. Just how firm is that “no miniskirts after 35” rule? Damn, one of my best features is my legs! How mini is mini? I also have an addiction to plaid skirts cut about four inches above the knee – not Britney Spears don’t-bend-over short, but certainly shorter than the matronly to-the-knee length I’ve been seeing all over town. Please tell me I don’t have to give those up yet!

So there’s the media-savvy part of me that is horrified by shows like What Not to Wear, where you expose your inadequacy on national TV and eat a good helping of humiliation for the edification of the armchair-fashionista potato-chip-snarfing audience at home. But there is a part of me who wants to be Cinderella, to be Julia Roberts in Pretty Woman or Ally Sheedy in the Breakfast Club. Despite the fact that I am mostly a confident, satisfied, happy woman, there’s a marginalized teenager deep in my heart who would love to find out she’s more beautiful and stylish than she ever imagined.

So if you see me in the mall, please do us both a favour and drag me away from the striped turtleneck sweaters that I will inevitably be coveting. I am weak.

It’s been an extremely validating day in Mommy Land.

Remember back a couple of weeks ago, when I was angsting over Tristan’s swim lessons, and I was pretty sure he wasn’t going to pass?

I was wrong!

Behold the latest graduate of Preschool AquaQuest Level One. I’m so proud! I can only imagine what a mess I’ll be some day when he does something really exciting, like graduating from Kindergarden. (whispers) And you know what the most delicious part is? (looks over shoulder) The teacher said he was the best in his class! (insert radiant beam here)

And then, as if that weren’t enough to make any mummy radioactive with pride, look what he did tonight:

If you look really closely, you can barely make out the TRISTAN through the chicken scratch (three times, no less!) It’s the first time he’s ever tried to write his name, and he was so adorably excited and proud of himself.

It’s so cute when he makes the Rs – he draws the legs first, then sits a ball on top of them. The first half a dozen times or so, he started from the right and wrote to the left, almost like mirror-writing. Is that common when they first start to make letters? Also, he starts at the bottom of the page and works his way up (you can see he improves as he warms up – these are takes six through nine, I think. Like his mother, once he finds something he likes, he’s rather obsessive about it.)

We now return you to your regularly scheduled Sunday evening…

Categories: Tristan

It wasn’t so much that I forked over nearly $200 to watch the Wiggles, as it was I forked over $200 to watch my kids watch the Wiggles. And you know what?

It was worth every penny.

Our seats were toward the back of the floor section, but right on the aisle. Which was a good thing, because Simon did not spend a moment actually sitting in his chair. I wish I could find a way to stream the video I took of him dancing his little heart out in the aisles, in the lovely way not-quite-two-year-olds heave themselves back and forth to the music.

I was just barely quick enough to catch a three second video of the moment Jeff Wiggle (the sleepy guy in purple) came down our aisle and right past an astonished Simon. The look on Simon’s face is truly priceless. (Anybody know how I might somehow stream some short video clips through Blogger?)

Simon has always been the real Wiggles fan, so I was thrilled to see Tristan dancing and singing along as well. He was mostly content to sit or stand in his Daddy’s lap, while Simon danced up the aisles and wandered around the sound crew, saying hello to the security staff.

Toward the end of the night, for what turned out to be the finale, I gave up trying to corral Simon and brought both boys right down to the stage. It was a gorgeous chaos of excited preschoolers, who seem to be all standing stock still in this photo, but were in fact a darting, dancing, singing mass of highly torqued munchkins.

This last one is my bad mommy picture. It’s not a very good photo, but you can just see the beginnings of an “oh no you don’t” expression on Anthony Wiggle’s face. That would be the look he is shooting my son as Simon lifts the curtain hanging over the edge of the stage and contemplates diving underneath while his inattentive mother snaps photos in blissful oblivion.

Yes, a Wiggles not only noticed, but disciplined my child. How’s that for a claim to fame? It’s almost as exciting as the time when, at the tender age of 15, Corey Hart sprayed me (and about a thousand other overwrought teeny-boppers) with a garden hose at a particularly steamy July concert.

I didn’t actually catch most of the concert myself, but would pay the $200 again in a heartbeat to see my boys dancing together, their little faces bright with excitement. Through the whole night, there was not a single tantrum, not a single tear, not even a defiant word. And they didn’t even fall asleep on the car ride home.

How could it get any better than that?

Did you know that if you post a picture on your blog, it gets indexed under Google Images? I figured it out when I was playing in the referral logs (I know, I know, but it’s like potato chips – I know it’s bad for me, but I can’t help myself) and I kept seeing Google hits like this one. Those are all my pictures from Tristan’s Day Out with Thomas.

It indexes all the pictures posted on Flickr, too. When I key “Tristan and Simon” into Google Images, this picture of the boys with their cousin is the fourth image on the list of search returns.

I dunno why this is so unsettling to me. Maybe because it’s one thing to place the images deliberately in one space, and another to have them added to the giant Rolodex that is Google. I put those images up in context to show you, the people who read my blog, but having them churning out there independently is just wrong. I’ve been getting tonnes of hits from those Thomas images, too. I think it’s the first time a spike in traffic ever freaked me out in a bad way.

As if that weren’t weird enough, a friend recently pointed this out to me. Yes, that’s right, I seem to have my very own official page on Answers.com. How the holy hell that happened, with my full real name no less, is a complete mystery to me. I register for absolutely everything as DaniGirl, so I can’t imagine how blog got hooked up to my real name. I guess I don’t mind so much, but I sure would like to know how it happened.

Who would have guessed it? Even attention-whores and media sluts have boundaries.

When I started writing this blog, I didn’t even use the boys’ real names. I called them Frankie and Luigi (pet names from their middle names, Francis and Louis) but I couldn’t stand writing about them without using their real names. My mother continues to be rather anxious that I post pictures of the boys at all, especially the one in my profile that shows Tristan in nothing but a diaper – to say nothing of the nudie shots I posted this summer of adorable boys running nekkidly rampant through my backyard.

The Internet is such a big place, and I am such a naive girl. What do you think? Is having your personal information out there a bad thing? Would you be as freaked out about the pictures as I was?

Sigh….

I was coming out of Tim Horton’s the other day with one extra-large coffee in each hand. Not only did one gentleman hold open the door for me, but another guy just stepping out of his car reached over and opened the passenger-side door for me as I tried to work my fingers underneath the handle and pull it open without dropping my coffees.

It confirms a theory I’m working on – chivalry is back.

Just in the past few months, I’m noticing a lot more doors being held, seats being relinquished, and “no-you-go-okay-I’ll-go-no-really-I-insist” dances with total strangers. It’s been quite refreshing!

Now, it could be that since I spend a lot of time with both hands full and a preschooler or two dangling from my limbs, people are just more prone to take pity on me, or are trying to help me out so I don’t do damage to any innocent bystanders, but I’ll take it nonetheless.

I was getting a ride home from a work colleague recently, and as we approached his car he actually came around to my side of the car first and opened the door for me. I have to admit, that’s the first time anyone has ever done that and I loved it. Such a simple gesture, but so very classy.

I never understood the argument that courtesies like this were somehow demeaning to women. Maybe it’s because I’m secure in my ability to open my own door that I don’t feel threatened when someone else offers to do it for me? I admit, though, to feeling rather bad the few times that a gentleman has stood back to let me get on the bus first and I ended up getting the last seat, leaving him to stand for the 35 minute ride home. It’s sometimes a little embarrassing to be an able-bodied recipient of someone’s kindness when you feel you are really no more deserving than they are.

I’m proud of the boys’ manners, inasmuch as preschoolers can have manners. Tristan’s “thanks” whenever I hand him something is now so ingrained that I can see he doesn’t even think about it, and Simon is the most adorable toddler ever with his similar sounding “here-go-mummy” and “thang-u-mummy” whenever he gives me something or gets something from me. It’s important to me that they grow up to be the kind of boys who think of others, and who are respectful and courteous.

What do you think? Is chivalry back? How important a role do manners play in your opinion of someone? Is it still appropriate for a man to step back and let a woman go first, or is it insulting?

My sweet friends Cooper and Emily of Been There are writing a book. These are the same two wonderful women who launched the Hurricane Katrina Clearninghouse that continues to run as a meeting place for people who need help and people who can offer help.

Cooper asked me if I would share their questions with you. You can reply in the comment box if you like, or you can e-mail Cooper and Emily directly at parentingbook@comcast.net.

1) Describe a time (s) of great meaning that you experienced with your family (as a parent, as a child or both.) Details, please!

2) What gets in the way – if anything – of spending time with and truly being in the moment with your kids? What are the biggest time drains on family life, for you? Is it hectic lives, too much to do, other parents/family? Please be specific, a story or two to describe would be wonderful.

3) Along those lines, what do you see as the greatest challenges to you in your parenting or in childrearing in general? What are the roadblocks? Again, specifics and anecdotes are encouraged!

4) Describe something (s) you and your family are doing well. What is it you are best at and why (communicating, having fun etc.)? Please describe with stories if possible.

Thanks!

One of my favourite TV shows is Corner Gas. I’m sure most of my American friends have never heard of it, but if you get the chance, do check it out. It’s a witty, slightly bent ensemble comedy set in rural Saskatchewan. Every single episode makes me laugh out loud at some point, sometimes through the whole thing. You don’t have to be Canadian to get it, but it helps.

Last night’s episode started out looking like an interruption to previously scheduled programming in the form of a national address from Prime Minister Paul Martin, which would not be entirely unexpected given that we are anticipating the tabling of the first Gomery report today. (I’m not getting into Gomery here. Google “Gomery” and “Adscam” if you want a tutorial in what’s hot on the Canadian political scene right now.)

The Prime Minister is interruted by Brent Butt, the star of Corner Gas:

Brent: “Hello Mr. Prime Minister. Um… I’m just kind of wondering what you’re doing?”

PM: “I’m speaking to the nation. I’m addressing Canada!”

Brent: “Um… is this something you have to do right now?”

PM: “Is now a bad time?”

Brent: “Sort of… For me, anyway. I kind of had the next 30 minutes planned out. This is really the only half-hour in the week they let me do anything. The rest is pretty much Canadian Idol.”

PM: “But what about my message?”

Brent: “You can do a mass e-mailing. You can “cc” the nation.”

PM: “You know I like the way you think.”

Brent: “Really? You can make me Minister of something!”

PM: “I gotta go…”

Some days it’s great to be Canadian…

I need your advice, oh clever and wise bloggy friends.

I’ve blogged before about our troubles with the teenager next door. I don’t think he is a particularly bad kid, but he is on the road to trouble. He lives with his mom, whom I like on a “chatting in the driveway” kind of way, and his younger brother and sister, who are sweet and well mannered but wild. The teen is surly, he smokes dope at all hours of the day without much attempt to be covert about it, he skips classes and he is rude to his mother. He can also be quite polite, even to me, when the mood strikes him. Like I said, I don’t think he’s so much bad as misguided.

But…

Last night at about 1 am I woke up to loud voices in the driveway. I stumbled to the window just in time to see somebody coming up our walkway about six meters from the front door and without even thinking about it, I opened the window and yelled, “Hey! SCAT!” (Scary, eh? What can I say, I was still half asleep.) He turned on a dime and ran back to his house – I saw when he turned it was the teen next door – and I heard him thumping around inside, probably running up the stairs.

I was a little perplexed, and actually felt a little bad for yelling at him. I don’t know whether he was up to mischief and maybe wanted to smash the three pumpkins still sitting on the porch, or whether he was in trouble and was coming to knock on the door (I’ve told the littler ones that if they ever need help and their mom isn’t home, they can come and knock on my door), or something else. I yelled mostly because he and his friends have previously made a habit of sitting on the park bench on our front lawn and smoking or chatting rather loudly in the wee hours of the morning, and while I don’t begrudge them the use of the bench, I’m less than tolerant of the butts on the lawn and being woken up by someone I didn’t recently give birth to.

Less than a few minutes later, I again heard voices yelling in the driveway (this is through closed windows, mind you) and got up to look out the window just in time to see him stalking off toward the playground nestled in a small copse of trees across the street. I recognized his mother standing in the driveway calling after him, then rifling through her purse looking for something. She disappeared into the house and while I stood there in a sleepy stupor too tired to crawl back into bed, a police car came down the street with spotlight blazing, searching between the houses. As I watched, he scanned the park with his spotlight before parking in the driveway and going in to talk to my neighbour. For at least another 15 minutes, he and another squad car prowled the neighbourhood, shining their spotlight between houses and through the darkened park and schoolyard across the street.

I have no idea whether they found him, what they did with him when they did, or why they were looking for him. Mostly, I would really like to know what he was up to when I chased him away from my front door.

This isn’t the first encounter with the police I’ve watched through drawn blinds. A month or so ago on a cold and rainy night, I was getting the kids ready for a bath when Beloved told me two squad cars were in the driveway next door. The teen was in the back of one of the cars and the officers were talking to my neighbour. I got the impression that she had called the police and not that he had been picked up somewhere. At one point, they pulled the kid out of the back of the squad car to pat him down, and he was handcuffed. The mom went back in the house, and the two squad cars – with the kid still in the back seat – pulled out of the driveway and onto the grass of the soccer field across the street to talk to each other in that driver’s window to driver’s window pose you often see cops and taxi drivers doing in parking lots.

All that to say, I’m getting a little worried.

I’d like to talk to my neighbour about this, to let her know I’ve seen the police visiting. She’s a really nice lady who seems to be trying hard, but is maybe a little overwhelmed to find herself a single mother to three kids. I’d like to ask her what’s up in a mother-to-mother sort of way, to offer a bit of camaraderie while at the same time make sure that he’s not into something that might have some consequences for my family, for my precious baby boys.

What do you think? Should I talk to her? Do you think it’s reasonable that I ask her what’s going on? Last year when Tristan had his seizure and the fire rescue truck and ambulance showed up with lights blazing after I called 911, she asked me the next day if everything was okay, so there’s a sort of a precedent. I was even thinking of calling the police station myself and asking about the nature of the call, but I’m guessing they won’t divulge that sort of information.

It’s not that I’m curious (okay, yes I am) or being nosy – I’m genuinely concerned that there’s a risk (small but real) to my property and my family now. You don’t call the police on your own kid just because you’re having a bad night, and they showed up WAY too quickly after the kid disappeared (one minute, maybe two) for them to be responding to a call that she made after he stalked off, so I can’t help but wonder if she called the police because I chased him away.

Any thoughts?